


Nobody’s somebody

by Hermit9



Category: Captain America (Movies), Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Consensual Sex, Crossover, Entirely too many pronouns, F/M, Identity Issues, Masks, Nebulous identities, One Night Stands, Soft places, a lot is unspoken, chance encounter, soft smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-16 15:43:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18097277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hermit9/pseuds/Hermit9
Summary: The first time she’d been to Venice she’d been as Emily Prentiss: as a child filled with anger and resentment at her unfair life. And it had been unfair, just not in only the ways she’d known then. The second time she’d been Lauren Reynolds and it had been a visit of fine dining, fine wines, glamour, and listening to deals through parted doors and ancient plaster as she had willed her breathing to stop.Both of those women are dead. She doesn’t know, yet, who she is this time.





	Nobody’s somebody

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the wonderful Deejaymil for feeding this plotbunny until it took over the entirety of my brain and demanded to be written. 
> 
> Beta by [omgbubblesomg](https://archiveofourown.org/users/omgbubblesomg/profile).

The first time she’d been to Venice she’d been as Emily Prentiss: as a child filled with anger and resentment at her unfair life. And it had been unfair, just not in only the ways she’d known then. The second time she’d been Lauren Reynolds and it had been a visit of fine dining, fine wines, glamour, and listening to deals through parted doors and ancient plaster as she had willed her breathing to stop. 

Both of those women are dead. She doesn’t know, yet, who she is this time.

She is wearing a dress, floor length and figure-hugging because why have government money and not spend it. The halter straps are covered in small crystals that catch what light they can in the dimmed atmosphere of the hotel bar, gathering the rushed fabric over her breast and parting again for a keyhole effect. It leaves her shoulders bare to draw attention to skin, deliberately. It’s shamrock green out of spite.

The ice chinks in her glass as it melts. She’s loath to admit it, but she wishes someone would cross the room to talk to her, even if she’d turn them down. It’d be nice, to have someone to talk to. Noises from the parade reach her in echoes and she looks out of the window, to watch the play of spotlights against the skyline.

He walks along one of the canals, not lost but unfamiliar enough with the area that he can flirt with the idea. The crowd had been thick along the grand canal to watch the parade, cheering at the fire breathers and tightrope walker that crossed precariously over them. Hundreds of people, locals and tourists intermingled, though the latter were louder and drunker. No one paid attention to him. What if his shoulders are overly broad and his eyes, under the velvet mask, lined with smudged kohl? The entire city is playing a game of mistaken identity on this night.

A flash of green catches his eye through the glass of a hotel bar. The woman has a nice figure, slight and yet powerful, like a coiled snake ready to strike. Her hair is curled and styled with care and the mask she chose is painted in iridescent green, with dyed feathers. It’s her eyes that make him stop walking. Her eyes are sad and a bit lost. He remembers seeing that look in his own mirror more than once, as he took stock of what was left of the ruins of his life, after Hydra. 

He angles his walk towards the door, doesn’t question the pull of it further, happy for now to follow whatever serendipity is guiding him. Muted jazz music greets him along with the warmth he hadn’t realized he’d been missing as the night had cooled around him. He orders a drink at the bar, habit making him scan sightlines and exits as he waits. He pays with the brightly coloured notes he’s been assured are actual money and not make believe. The woman is still alone at her table when he gets his glass. 

“Are you waiting for someone?”

She looks him up and down, taking stock of the size of him, of the pale eyes behind the mask that was barely a mask at all. It looks like a piece of velvet that had been chopped up and tied around his face, covering the upper half in a clumsy way. It brings to mind something she’s seen children do: pretending to be ninjas with twisted black t-shirts more than of proper Venetian masquerade attire. He has a nice smile, a bit playful. He reminds her a bit of Morgan, by the way he moves. He is combat trained, that is clear, and something about his demeanor makes her lean on the military side, more than a cop. 

“Not in the slightest.”

The voice takes him by surprise. He knows this voice, is on friendly terms with its owner even if calling anyone a friend is a stretch for him. There was no recognition on her side. He doesn’t think he is that forgettable. 

Most of what Hydra had done had been bad science, horrible science, or science splattered like a shoddy veneer over research into the occult and unknownable items. They’d thought the Asset was too dumb to understand any of it, but he was quiet, not oblivious. He’d learned more than they knew through the stop-and-start years and the cycling teams. He’d heard about this as rumours, the soft places in the world where things that weren’t but could have been met, where the quantum probabilities collapsed, for a time. 

He has known her, in a different age and she has chased him in a different nightmare.

“Lucky for me.” 

He doesn’t speak louder than he needs to for her to hear him. In fact, she’s pretty sure she’s the only one who heard him at all. They talk about the cities and the parade, about the boats and about old buildings. She watches her words, wary of giving up anything real or personal, afraid she has none to give at all. But he keeps the conversation light and easy, flowing easily into redirects and deflection. She doesn’t learn anything about him in return. It is a fair trade.

He teases the spark in her eyes back to life, drawing from memories of not-here because he hasn’t been above cheating since before he ever met Steve Rogers. He counts his victories in chuckles and smiles that grow less cold as the evening goes. 

Time ticks away around them, thinning the crowd of patrons as they trade opinions on books and music. She knows she has to make a decision at some point. She’s enjoying the banter because she’s missed quick wits and sharp tongues. Exile is lonely and is veiled in grief. But he is charming, and funny, and dangerous without the shadow of a doubt: like Ian had been from beginning to end. Her hand presses against her stomach, the still numb areas where the nerves were cut and the raised line of the scars she can map through the dress’ fabric. 

“It’s getting late. My hotel is across town, I’d better start walking and figure out how lost I am. Thank you for the company.”

He doesn’t try to kiss her hand or do anything flashy, in fact hasn’t touched her all evening. She realizes he’s only had the one drink and hadn’t ordered more for her, so either he doesn’t drink much or he wasn’t trying to lower her inhibition. Her guts tell her it’s both, and she thinks about the vast emptiness of the bed that’s waiting for her several floors up. A shiver runs down her spine at the idea of cold sheets, cold like the O.R. table and the cement floor. For this one night, she doesn’t want to be cold. She moves before she can overthink, before she can analyze the impulse into base components and dissect the gut feeling. She puts her hand on his back as he reached the brass handle to open the door of the lobby, convinced that if he had crossed that threshold he would have melded into the night never to be seen again. 

“Come up to my room? It’ll be easier to find your way in the light?” 

He nods and follows her to the elevator, a vintage piece with embellished gold plated bas-relief on the doors. Somehow it puts him more at ease than the sleek modern ones. She keeps her hands still as the needle moves them up the building, breathing in and focusing on the pull of her lungs. In the enclosed space she can smell her own sweat and the scent of him, closer now then he had been in the bar. He smells of light florals and leather conditioner. She finds the combination amusing, if unsettling. She’d expected something spicy and woody, as unarguably male as the space he occupies.

Tension radiates from her, well controlled but still present. Even the Widow would have been proud. He wants to run his hand over her shoulders and down her spine, in comfort, but it would spook her. When the door opens to her floor he follows her, quiet as a ghost. She fishes out a keycard to the room and he can't help but be disappointed. A hotel this old and beautiful deserves actual keys, not electronics. No one knows how to properly pick locks this side of the millennium, keys might even be safer.

She puts the keycard on the dresser next to the individually wrapped glasses she knows better than to try to drink out of and leans on the furniture to remove her heels. The sound of them landing in the far corner is absorbed by the thick carpet. She takes a fortifying breath before turning around. He has taken off the heavy wool cape he’d been wearing and the breath catches a little in her throat on the exhale. He turns to look at her over his shoulder as he puts the garment in the closet by the door. The silky sheen of his shirt does nothing to hide the shift of the muscles beneath it, clinging along his spine where perspiration has claimed hold. He winks. Not everything is artifice and he knows exactly what he’s selling.

She can’t help but reach and smooth the shirt out, getting a feel of the firmness and warmth of the skin beneath. Her fingers brush the hair at the nape of his neck and she curls her hand over the broadness of his shoulders. She stills there, unconvinced she’s still breathing. He gently taps her wrists so that she lets go, hands hovering in front of her chest in placation. She doesn’t have a gun on her and she’s not sure she could reach the bedside table if she tried. 

He moves slowly, turning to face her even as he grabs hold of the back of his shirt, hauling it off in a smooth motion and letting it fall to the ground between them. The smooth metal that covers his left arm could almost be believed to be another layer of the costume. The proportions with his right arm are perfect and it looks too good for it to be any prosthetic, outside of some military projects and movies special effects. Except for the way it moves, in hundreds of little folds as he brings it up for her to examine. Except for the fact that she’s seen it before, in composite pictures and in files. He’s supposed to be a ghost, a legend, a made up story to scare young intelligence clerks. 

“Well, that is a statement piece,” she says, hoping for a lie or levity.

“One of a kind,” he replies, almost a rebuke. 

He waits. 

“Did you really shoot Kennedy?” she asks before she can stop herself, years of curiosity bubbling out of her before her brain and training can intervene. That is classified information, something Agent Prentiss would know, with FBI and Interpol connections. Not the woman living in France. 

“The motorcade was scene setting.” He pauses, looking over her shoulder and at nothing in particular. “The man who pulled that trigger walked away into a blizzard, somewhere near Тайга” 

He flexes his fingers and a _tick-tick-tick_ follows as they hit his palm. His flesh hand rises to pull down the velvet mask. She stops him.

“I want to be able to tell them I never saw your face.” 

His lips twitch with amusement and she wants to kiss the expression away. She does. He tastes of the orange-tinted whiskey of his drink. He attempts to pull back so she digs both hands in his hair, palms pressed against his cheeks, and holds him there. He runs his hands up her arms in a game of contrast, always soft but the pressure and the temperature differs. She can feel the gun calluses on his real hand, or maybe she imagines them because her brain is still hyperalert. He undoes the small buttons at the back of her neck with a deftness that would put many a dressmaker to shame. The fabric shimmies away from her body under its own weight, pooling around her ankles. 

“That’s not fair,” she says, close enough that the words are less sounds and more movement against his skin. “You’re still wearing too many clothes.”

“I can fix that.” He pushes her back gently, then kneels down to unlace the combat boots he had hidden under slacks too clean and too proper for the style. She somehow finds it endearing, a flaw in the perfect image born of personal comfort. He swivels his hips as he moves the pants off his hips, leaving behind the snug, black, underwear so they’re on an even playing field again. 

She waits for him to pick up the discarded clothes, putting them away into the closet, in a messy ball but out of the way, on top of his boots. He looks at her, for the first time in the evening acting uncertain. Trying to make sure he’s still welcome, to judge her comfort on some invisible scale. She appreciates the care, but it chafes at the same time. There’s something about being looked at as a fragile porcelain doll. As a victim. She fought too long to stop being the first, and is tired of feeling like the second. 

There’s no slow approach this time, no warnings, She crashes against him like a storm surges against a cliff face, hungry and claiming. He kisses back, politeness melting into heat and hunger. She tries to wrap a leg around his waist, hands skating down his back as she breaks the kiss to worry at his jaw and throat. She curses, once, as she bangs her shin on the still open closet door. He chuckles and taps the back of her leg, twice. She jumps at the implied command, into his waiting arms. He holds her weight as if it was nothing at all, fingers splayed on her thighs and on the flesh of her ass left exposed by the scalloped edges of the French lace. 

He walks them to the bed with dancer’s grace, holding her against himself with the metal arm as he fumbles with his other hand, ripping the comforter away to expose the softer sheets. For a moment the attention to detail amuses her, whether it’s because of a fear of soiled comforter or out of a sense of compassion towards the hotel’s laundry services. The thought is driven from her mind as he deposits her on the claimed space. He follows the downward movement, kissing down her quivering throat to her clavicle. He undoes the snaps of her bra with two fingers and pulls it away carefully as if he’s afraid of ripping the delicate fabric. His other hand, the metal one, moves to cover her left breast. The cold is intriguing and a contrast to the heat of his mouth as he moves down to kiss its twin, tongue teasing around the nipple. He doesn’t linger, moving down along her sternum, hand chasing ahead and pulling her panties off. He doesn’t touch the scar on her stomach, but his breath ghosts across the angry flesh. 

And just like that, it’s too much, too intimate. She feels vulnerable and a bit like she wants to crawl out of her skin. She squirms and makes an inarticulate noise in her discomfort. He sits back on his heels immediately, looking up at her curiously but without judgement. The thumb of his right hand runs idle circles against her knee. 

“Get up here, I have an idea.” Her words sound forced even to her own ears. They are, in a way. Forced over the sudden lump in her throat and the ice around her heart. He doesn’t question it, standing then, upon her invitation, sitting on the bed next to her. The mattress sags under his weight, but it holds. It’s a very expensive hotel. There is a thrill in the increasing disarray of the room. 

The view, as she pushes off the bed and goes digging into a carry-on bag, is a study in planes and angles. Her shoulder blades peek up in bony points as she moves, bringing to mind vestigial wings. His hand migrates to his cock while he waits, teasing himself with light touches, barely there. He doesn’t know what she has in mind, but it rarely hurt to be ready. From what he knows of her, she’s not the type to hurt him for it. 

A lifetime of packing go-bags pays off. There’s a strip of condoms in the smaller pocket inside her luggage, along with the blister strips of decongestants, painkillers, and antacids; everything orderly so she could find them on autopilot, by touch and memory. Her whole life, condensed to a single bag small enough to be stuffed in an overhead bin. The maudling flows out of her — probably chasing her brain — when she turns back around. She has one last fully formed though and it sounds suspiciously like _‘Holy mother of God how is this my life_ ’. The blasphemy only feels fitting. He catches her looking and slows his movement, somewhere between hesitant and putting on a show. He’s sitting exactly as she left him, feet flat on the floor, slouching ever so slightly against the mattress, most his weight on his left arm. His right hand is circling his cock, the fingertips light and spiralling on the upstroke but firm enough to stretch the skin on the way down. His eyes have heat now, a slow smoulder that she has no doubt he could sustain for an inhuman period of time. She wonders if she could outlast him. She wonders what would happen if she fanned the embers to flames. 

The sound of the tinfoil packet ripping is loud, even over their breathing. She drops the gutted wrapper and the rest of the strip, like tiny metallized caltrops to be found by naked feet later. She doesn’t care in that moment. She straddles him, thankful for flexibility training, and kisses him again. She enjoys the kissing. He lifts her up so her kees have leverage on the bed, moving the limbs as easily as if she was a ragdoll. While his hands are busy she rolls the condom down his length then wipes the sticky pre-packaged lube off her hands and unto the sheets. He holds her weight as she positions herself with one hand around his cock to guide it where she wants. Some part of her brain thinks about how easily she could get spoiled by the effortless manhandling then she shuts it down. It’s a dangerous line of thinking: one she can’t allow, even in fantasies. 

The warmth of her is slightly maddening as she slowly descends on his cock. He can tell it’s been a long time, from her heartbeat and the tightness and the way she clings to him. He kisses her, to distract both of them a bit. Open mouth kisses along her neck, with soft nips and licks on her shoulder and collarbone. He’s careful not to leave marks behind. Once he’s certain she can leverage her weight with her knees he moves his hands from her ass, trails them up her spine and into her hair. The curls are shiny and perfect, they probably took hours to style and tame. He runs his fingers through, enjoying the tiny moments where the controlled strands become undone. He’s been well trained and conditioned to love destruction, on all levels.

She rolls her hips, slow at first, getting used to the angle and the position, to the feeling of warmth around and inside her. It’s been a long time, long enough that she doesn’t care to make the calculation. She doesn’t have Reid’s brain, able to make that count down to the second on a whim. She speeds up, claims his mouth in a kiss, worrying his lower lip with her teeth until the heat in her blood and in her stomach drowns the memories of those she’s left behind. She pulls back, far enough to look him in the eye but not far enough to risk falling.

“Are you going to make me do all the work?”

He smirks an answer and his wandering hands drop to her hips, gripping as he uses his legs to leverage up. She falls against his chest, clinging and holding on for the ride. For a moment she worries that it’s too much or too fast, but the stretch fades and is replaced by pressure almost but not quite hitting the perfect area as he continues to thrust against her. She buries her face in his neck, breathing him in. She’s struck again by the light floral scent that clings to his skin. Hibiscus and something fruity, light and fresh, over cedar and skin musk. It’s not a scent she can tie to a place or to a time, except maybe to here and now. 

She draws her nails across his shoulders, welts rising and vanishing in their wake. She doesn't know if it's the spike of pain that makes his breath hitch and his rhythm stutter. The last few thrusts are wild and desperate, as he groans what she realizes is his first noise since she decided not to run away, before stilling deep in her, head resting against her shoulder.

He knows. He elects not to tell her.

“Oh no, you’re not done.”

He chuckles against her sternum, breath normalizing at a profoundly unfair rate. He taps the bed next to him and she takes the hint. She shimmies off his lap and watches as he stalks to the bathroom to dispose of the condom. The sheets are cold and she shivers as the sweat dries off her skin. He scoots her toward the center of the bed, lying down next to her. He pulls up into an embrace and she gasps quietly at the amount of skin on skin contact. Her back rests against his chest and it sends electricity fluttering over the entire area. He snakes his left arm under her own, loosely holding a breast as the other hand traces a path south. He cups her still throbbing sex, making her gasps and rock instinctively into his hand. 

The rough scratch of the stubble on his cheeks adds another layer of sensation as his fingers move slowly, parting her fold and rubbing along the area until he figures out where she likes to be touched and how much pressure to use. He shifts his leg to rest between hers, caging her in heat and a pernicious sense of safety. He’s not safe, she knows that, just as she knows no one can get to her as she lies on that bed. She hides her face in the pillows even if he can’t see her expression. He’s not the one she’s hiding from as she ruts against his hand and back against the mass and physicality of all of him against her back and her ass.

Heat pools against the base of her spine and against his hand and everywhere they are touching. He murmurs something against her, she might have know the words on another day, but her Russian had always been weak. She moans a long sigh that ends with a sound that could almost be a sob as release washes over her and she trembles from it. He holds her through the storm, fingers slowing and then stopping until he is still and silent. She doesn’t know how long she spends in the haze of the afterglow, on the cusp of sleep and overstimulated mania. 

“Wow.” The word is small and carried by almost no breath. 

He pulls the covers over her as he untangles from their embrace. He rubs his cheek against her arm like an affectionate cat. She knows the words that are coming and she turns to face him, though her limbs feel loose and heavy. Sated. 

“I have to go.” 

She nods. She understands. There was never a chance of asking him to stay. He’s not the kind you keep. Besides, she doubts her undercover identity could stretch to cover the connection. He sits on the bed, head bowed in a way that hides his expression from her as he reaches for the mask that still covers his face. 

“Close your eyes.”

She does because it is the only thing she can do. He loops the velvet of his mask around her wrists, not bothering with the knot. The intent is clear. She runs the fabric between her fingers, soft and damp in places and she concentrates on the noises in the room. 

The sound of water echoing off tiles in the bathroom. The rustles of fabric. 

The soft hiss of the hinges as the door opens, then closes under its own weight and the electronic lock engages with a _snick_. 

Nothing. 


End file.
